Air Belgium in 2018

[Sai]

TUI B767 33" pitch - 18" width

Are you sure about that? I'm told that the TUI 767 OO-JNL is one of the very few planes in the world stacking 8 pax abreast ihttp://www.aviation24.be/forums/posting.php?mo ... p=366609#n a 767 designed for a 2-3-2 configuration.

Yes, I know. See for yourself and compare: TUI B767 same seatmap as OO-JNL.

Imagine, that particular B767 is legroom-wise in Y-class in Belgium the most you can get ...

Just compared 'Y+' classes/Premium classes to be complete and the same ranking stays it seems for TUI although AB Y+ is bigger than SN's

3. SN A330 34" pitch - 17,5" width
2. AB A340 36" pitch - 20,1" width
1. TUI B767 36" pitch - 20,5" width

Nevermind...more and more operators are interested to fly long-haul with single aisle A/C such as A320 neo and B737 MAX....so expect a "standard" in the future of 30"

edit: correct ranking Y+

[sn26567]

TUI B767 33" pitch - 18" width

Are you sure about that? I'm told that the TUI 767 OO-JNL is one of the very few planes in the world stacking 8 pax abreast in a 767 designed for a 2-3-2 configuration.

Yes, I know. See for yourself and compare: TUI B767 same seatmap as OO-JNL.

Seatguru must be wrong: the width cannot possibly be 18" with 8 pax abreast! This site says the width is 17", too little for me: https://www.airline-update.com/seat-pit ... omy-class/

[TLspotting]

Hi, I think I will go to CRL on 30 April to spot the first AB taking-off, but only from the "terminal" spot, so not with the gear off... I'll try my best for this day.

I'll be there too i'm not working the 30 april

But where'll be the best place, In the aeropole if it takes off above Fleurus or in the parking of the old carrefour of Jumet if it takes off above Jumet

do you know another better place ?

Near to Sabca maybe ?

[etopsflyers]

Hi Convair,

Thanks for you feedback, I tried my best to upload the report asap and worked on it till 4-5AM
I realised a few mistakes but it was already uploaded so I tought I would just leave it that way.
I am so happy and thankful for being one of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to fly yesterday.
I am also proud of Air Belgium, our flag is going to fly all over Asia a few days from now on!
Enjoy guys, life is too short not to do what we love NOW:)
Etops Flyers

[Bralo20]

Seatguru must be wrong: the width cannot possibly be 18" with 8 pax abreast! This site says the width is 17", too little for me: https://www.airline-update.com/seat-pit ... omy-class/

There's more wrong:

SN's Y seats are 18" wide, the standard width on an A330, same applies to SN's Y+ which are the same seats. legroom is 33" in Y with SN, a bit more in Y+(34-36")

[Vic Diesel]

Being an old-fashioned guy (and quite bad at filming and editing films), I rather write down my experiences on flight KF340 last Saturday:

Trip report Air Belgium 1st "rehearsal flight" KF340, 21.04.2018

Check-in:
I arrived quite early at CRL and proceeded to the checkin counter to get a printed copy of my boarding pass. Aside from a cabin trolley (containing just a jacket in order not to be completely empty - but since we were asked to act like "real" travellers, I thought it might be useful) I had my "underneath-the-seat-bag" (to small in size for a 15"-laptop but a bit thick), containing headphones and my camera equipment. This seemed to cause some sort of confusion and I was told by the friendly ground staff member to wait for a moment as he scrambled away to ask his colleague something. To my astonishment, I was denied to bring both pieces of luggage on board. I explained that the smaller bag will be put underneath the seat in front of me - but it didn't help as it was found to be "too big" (judged just by the hawkeyes of the lady colleague of the guy behind the checkin desk). I gave up and checked in my cabin trolley, not before telling the ground staff to note as a recommendation to state this rather restrictive policy on their website. I flew with several airlines before and never before did I encounter this sort of cabin luggage policy - not even with LCC Wizz Air.

Boarding:
After meeting Andre and other members of Aviation24.be (sorry guys for not remembering names, I am VERY bad at this...) and proceeding through passport control (or should I say: NEXT TO passport control, as our passports were of course not controlled for the CRL-CRL flight), we went downstairs for the boarding. I skip the fine treatment by the company's representatives such as photobooth) boarding finally began. The queue for coach class was - unsurprisingly for a longhaul twin-aisle aircraft - quite long. After having our boarding passes checked by the staff, we were to walk outside to board the aircraft that was parked right in front of us. Whether we took the front or the rear stairs was up to us. I think there is some room for improvement, e.g. separate queues for the front and the rear Economy cabin and an according direction to the front or rear stairs accordingly to speed up boarding.

Seating:
It is yet to see if Air Belgium ist changing the whole sets of seats in Y (or just branding them in Air Belgium colors), but I think that the old Finnair seats are not the worst. The 2-4-2 seating is something I like - provided I can snatch a window seat. Legroom was anything but plenty - but given the fact that most of the paxes will probably be Chinese tourists, they are certainly used to even worse: I flew with Air China A333 before and found the seating THERE dreadfully cramped. Compared to that, Air Belgium is quite decent - bearing in mind, for an airline that claims to be LCC. The adjustable headrests were a nice surprise, with foldable side parts so that when falling asleep, they would provide for some side support for your head.
Both Business and Premium seats were in a 2-2-1 seating but as far as I understood that will be changed soon.

IFE:
We were given earplugs for the IFE - I don't like the in-ear variant but tried it nonetheless. The headset connects to the armrest with a dual-prong jack. By opening the armrest cover, a controller could be removed, containing the IFE controller on one side, a QWERTY-type keyboard and game console-type control buttons set on the other side. The cable was not retractable at it was not easy to fit in the controller again into the armrest. The screen was responsive but lagged 1-2 seconds in response, so at the beginning I pushed the screen a couple of times for a single command - which then led to anannoying series of play-pause-play-pause.

Film selection was not overwhelming but quite okay, but there seemed to be a total lack of music channels. While this might not bother some of us (I prefer my Spotify playlists on the smartphone), others might find this disappointing. About the movies: I found soundtracks in English, German and a third language (French?) - but you couldn't turn off Chinese subtitles which I found increasingly annoying during the otherwise fine remake of "Murder on the Orient Express".

Meal service:
I have no idea if and how Air Belgium will modify the cabin service for the actual longhaul flights. Having had just 3hrs of flight time and even less time spent in cruise mode, of course the company could not provide for the same variety of inflight meal service as on a 10hrs flight. After having reached our cruising altitude, we were given small carton boxes containing plastic cutlery, a bread roll, butter and a vacu-packed brownie. The boxes were to be folded out to make place for the hot meal. This turned out to be a surprisingly clever idea of making meal trays unnecessary as the folded-out-boxes provided for a quite stable container for all the "food stuff". The meal itself (pork with Chinese noodles and vegetables) was tasty and well above my expectations for an Economy Class meal - however my expectations were rather low after having flown Air China and United Airlines recently so I had plenty of fresh memories of dreadful inflight meals. Still I'd say that if they keep up the food quality on the same level like on this flight, the passengers won't be disappointed.

In addition to the meal, we got one complimentary drink - here again it was a pleasant surprise to be asked if I wanted some ice cubes. You don't get that question asked even on European legacy carriers - not even on those being proud of that 5th Skytrax star... Afterwards there was a round of coffee or tea. The inflight magazine (I loved that "freshly printed smell" of it!) contained a vast selection of meals and drinks that can be bought as well - a concept well known in the last years and which I think is more honest than to provide passengers with some standard meal service and let them get hungry again.

Duty free service:
Being on a scenic trip both originating and ending in CRL, there was of course no duty free service as such, although the inflight magazine (or should I rather call it "shopping magazine", as it seemed to consist of a mostly duty free catalogue and the pay-meal menu) seems to offer the usual mix of perfumes, watches, jewellery and travel gadgets. The only item that was sold on the flight was a 1:200 size plastic snap-fit model of OO-ABA in Air Belgium colors. This seemed to be a sought-after item - especially for very reasonable 15 Euros - as the flight attendants were constantly rushing to the aft galley to bring forth even more and more of them.

Cabin crew & service in general:
The overall impression was of a cabin crew that wanted to deliver a flawless service while being nice and polite to the passengers, wearing those uniforms that looked like a typical FA uniform, with a bright red color dominating. Of course here and there I could notice that this was a crew that never worked together before and also never worked on an Air Belgium flight before. But I suppose those small moments of confusion will soon disappear as they get more and more experience flying this type for Air Belgium.

Summary:
Being on a test flight, I haven't expected an entirely flawless and routine experience. Still, Air Belgium seems to have their flight crews well prepared. Boarding should be worked on to get it flawless, especially passenger information on luggage policy. With the aircraft unable to deny their Finnair heritage, the seating is acceptable if you are not a tall person. IFE should be still fine-tuned (adding music selection, getting rid of the lagging response) to provide for a decent experience. Inflight meals are already above the standard of average US and Chinese carriers. Would I fly with Air Belgium on one of their regular CRL-HKG flights? Honestly, I don't know: the company and the flight are more than acceptable for me, however the commuting to CRL is something which I'd rather avoid. With Cathay Pacific taking up the BRU-HKG route with brand new A350s for a reasonable price not that much above Air Belgium, I'd rather opt for the Zaventem departure. But still: this test flight was a unique experience I really enjoyed from the first minute until the last.

[Sai]

Seatguru must be wrong: the width cannot possibly be 18" with 8 pax abreast! This site says the width is 17", too little for me: https://www.airline-update.com/seat-pit ... omy-class/

There's more wrong:
SN's Y seats are 18" wide, the standard width on an A330, same applies to SN's Y+ which are the same seats. legroom is 33" in Y with SN, a bit more in Y+(34-36")

So even if data on Seatguru would be incorrect and even if SN pitch and width is on par with TUI on long-haul...I think we can agree that AB 31" is really tight in Y for rather long flights...

[Vic Diesel]

So even if data on Seatguru would be incorrect and even if SN pitch and width is on par with TUI on long-haul...I think we can agree that AB 31" is really tight in Y for rather long flights...

I can offer my personal impression rather than playing with numbers found on some websites: compared to my flights on Air China's A330-300, I had the feeling of having slightly more legroom on the Air Belgium A340-300 and the seat was also not as narrow as on CA.

[quixoticguide]

I found this on board the Air Belgium Airbus A340-300

[Vic Diesel]

I found this on board the Air Belgium Airbus A340-300

At least it has to do with Asia...

[mad_fab]

I was on the afternoon flight (so i didn't meet the other members of the forum ), quick review:

Check-in:
I arrived at 15:20, no queue at all, proceeded to the bag drop. I already had my boarding passe on my phone (Apple Wallet), everything worked smoothly, staff was friendly.

Boarding:
Proceeded directly to gate 8.
There was some confusion about where the "economy lane" was, priority line was at gate 8, but economy ended up queuing at gate 7. Boarding started on time. As in "real life" even when the call back rows a few people in the line where there with ticket for rows that weren't called yet (who said AvGeeks are good travelers ? ), but they were able to go through with a kind remark from the boarding agent.
So some confusion, but this what as rehearsal flight so it was expected.

Cabin:
The Cabin is still from the finair era. As someone who loves the A340 and never miss the opportunity to fly them this felt like some kind of "Back to the future" experience, especially compared to the LH A340s. This cabin was already old in 2016 and didn't age well especially the IFE.
I have no problem with the seats being a bit old, (in term of pitch/witdh they were on par with LH, or at least it felt like it) but the IFE is another story.
The touch screen was quiet unresponsive, so I elected to use the remote. The problem is that the remote was old, some buttons weren't functioning at all and the audio connector was worn out. I tried with the provided headphones and my bose QC35 but I ended up having to move the connector very carefully to get the sound working. Also, no USB connector to charge your tablet/phone/whatever and no WiFi, some things I got used to on long haul.
They said that this wasn't the "final experience", so I don't know if they are going to retrofit newer IFE before starting, but I certainly do hope so.

Catering:
Not much to say here, I'm not a big fan of food so I wouldn't dare to judge.
The only thing is that on the right aisle, the beverages arrived quite after the food (25 mins I think, I was in the back of the plane). Happens all the time, so no big deal, but other carriers usually include a small quantity of bottled water with the plate, it allow passenger to drink while eating without having to wait for the beverage cart. So imho including a small portion of bottled water with the brownie/bread would be a good idea.

Crew:
It's hard to notice that they aren't already used to work together, but that was expected. The important thing is that I felt that they were trying to deliver a perfect service and were very friendly/polite to the pax, so I'm quite happy with that.

General impression:
A nice experience, I'm glad that they offered us the possibility to fly with them.
Now I'm puzzled about my choice of carrier for my next HKG trip.
Belgian-me says "fly air belgium" but traveler-me says "look at those nice A350 that CX is flying, with brand new IFEs".
In the end, the price is probably going the determining factor in this case, but if they refurbish the cabin, I'll probably listen to Belgian-me

[sn26567]

Being an old-fashioned guy (and quite bad at filming and editing films), I rather write down my experiences on flight KF340 last Saturday

Superb report, Vic. I will advertise it on our Facebook page. Keep them coming!

About your check-in: all the handling at CRL is done by airport personnel, unlike BRU (Swissport and Aviapartner). Not sure your remarks will be forwarded to Air Belgium.

[Auka]

I just saw that on wikipedia, do you think it's possible ? any source other than wiki ?

"Six autres destinations chinoises seront annoncées dès mai 2018. Vers 2020, un renforcement des liaisons et de la flotte sera réalisé. Le PDG indique « être en négociation avec Airbus pour l'achat d'A330-900NEO ou d'A350XWB ». Air Belgium prévoit, après avoir établi des accords et après avoir reçu dans sa flotte des A330NEO ou des A350XWB, d'ouvrir des lignes sur le continent américain."

[sn26567]

I was on the afternoon flight (so i didn't meet the other members of the forum ), quick review

Another great trip report, mad_fab. And another referral on our Facebook page.

The delay for the drinks wasn't mentioned elsewhere than in your report, but I had the same remark for the morning flight, and I mentioned it in the satisfaction inquiry.

[Vic Diesel]

Being an old-fashioned guy (and quite bad at filming and editing films), I rather write down my experiences on flight KF340 last Saturday

Superb report, Vic. I will advertise it on our Facebook page. Keep them coming!

About your check-in: all the handling at CRL is done by airport personnel, unlike BRU (Swissport and Aviapartner). Not sure your remarks will be forwarded to Air Belgium.

Thanks for the kind words Andre! Well there was a lady at check-in who directed me to the economy counters while explaining to me that the "queue" I chose to get there was actually meant to be the exit from check-in - and that they just realised that they will need to change the queue design and relocate the exit to some other point as the design was misleading. This seems to be good news in terms of showing that the ground handling had a day of learning as well. This could improve procedures in the future.

Regarding the luggage policy: it seems the Air Belgium homepage was updated on this topic. And I also mentioned this in the feedback formular we got during the flight.

[sn26567]

I just saw that on wikipedia, do you think it's possible ? any source other than wiki ?

"Six autres destinations chinoises seront annoncées dès mai 2018. Vers 2020, un renforcement des liaisons et de la flotte sera réalisé. Le PDG indique « être en négociation avec Airbus pour l'achat d'A330-900NEO ou d'A350XWB ». Air Belgium prévoit, après avoir établi des accords et après avoir reçu dans sa flotte des A330NEO ou des A350XWB, d'ouvrir des lignes sur le continent américain."

I think that in a first step they will announce only three new destinations: Xi'an, Peking and Shanghai. The plan to acquire A350s or A330neos is also true. Also the plan to diversify to other continents than Asia: North and South America. But that should be considered as long-range planning! And by long-range, I mean time and not distance

[Wardinus]

I was on the second flight and had the chance to catch 2 tickets for the business class for me and my girlfriend. (first time in business, for now hopefully)

check in
The online check in gave us 2 places far apart, and they could not change it at the check in, so we had to reshuffle a bit in the plane.

cabin
the seats looked a bit worn, and there was a bit of grime everywhere, not what you would expect from a ‘new’ airline, but understandably. Movie selection was ok, but the language on the lego movie was german instead of dutch, they need to work the kinks out.
Staff was very friendly and spoke dutch or french fluently. the headphones provided were really good, they had noise canceling (almost bose quality), and they were collected before landing by the staff (to prevent theft i presume (we have all done this)).

catering

we received a glass of cava/champagne when seated, in a real glass.
then we had a two course meal , crevettes or lamb as starters, and as main course vispannetje or stoofvlees. As a dessert we had an ice cream, and belgian chocolates. In al it was a very good meal, even for on the ground standards. (I don't know how the chinese will like it, but i had some crazy food flying with China Eastern)
Drink service, and service in general was a bit slow, and the tomato juice that i asked for went on a trip through the cabin before it landed.


crew

the crew needs still a bit more getting used to each other, they need to streamline their service. But they are very friendly and joke around.

other passengers:
the majority of the passengers in business were paying, i guess 7 out of the 30 passengers were acquaintances of the flight attendants, of friends with terzakis daughter (was seated next to us)

exit:
In charleroi everything is fast, checked bags arrived after 5 minutes (the weren't very much in the plane to be honest), but the baggage carousel was unannounced, we had to guess where they were.

conclusion:
nice to fly once on an unique trip, and very pleasant, but in the end for me, the price will be more of a determining factor.

[sn26567]

I was on the second flight and had the chance to catch 2 tickets for the business class for me and my girlfriend. (first time in business, for now hopefully)

Another very good (and illustrated) trip report, Wardinus. I'll promote this one too on our Facebook page.

[Passenger]

Subscribed capital to 20 mio Euro is now finanalized:

Belgium's State Gazette 24/04/2018:
http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/tsv_pd ... 066857.pdf

[Boeing767copilot]

First flight postponend to Juin 3th